Some taxpayers who overpaid the county will get their money back, plus an interest rate of 2.43 percent, a county finance committee recommended Monday.
That interest rate will be on top of whatever interest the county charged the taxpayer, county special counsel Mike Carter said. The money will go back to the property owner and not a mortgage company.
The committee will make the recommendation to the County Commission as the county tries to move past a federal probe into the county Trustee's Office.
A federal investigation probed whether the Trustee's Office mishandled payments made toward delinquent property taxes by those in Chapter 13 bankruptcy, according to newspaper archives. The county is accused of failing to give credit for partial payments, so the county received more from property owners than it legally was owed.
The County Commission's finance board met for about one hour and decided these 3,000 files of taxpayers, who overpaid the county by about $300,000, should receive compensation for the loss of the use of their money. But it won't be as simple as it sounds, according to Carter.
"That $300,000 figure is very misleading because part of this will be applied to taxes owed to us," Carter said. "I can see this costing very little if any of the current cash flowing into the county general fund."
Carter also said some taxpayers significantly underpaid the county, saying the county will likely send out more bills to taxpayers than checks. Carter did not have a figure of how much was underpaid, saying many of these people are in bankruptcy and making payments through a U.S. Chapter 13 Trustee.
The refund calculations will go all the way back to 2002, Carter said.
County Trustee Bill Hullander, the county's chief property tax collector, said any money sent to taxpayers will have any money owed to the county withheld. If someone has an unpaid traffic ticket, for example, the money will be deducted from the check, Hullander said.
Commissioner Jim Fields called the underpayments and overpayments a "mess that's been cleaned up."
Contact Dan Whisenhunt at dwhisenhunt@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6481. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/DWhisenhunt.